Monday, June 22, 2009

Adiedo, Kenya - May 2009

So sorry to keep ya'all waiting on Kenya pics. These are snap shots of the village. Adiedo. No running water. Just rain. Until the dry season.

















Dirt floors. Blossoms on the path. A "shower" round back.

















And water collectors.

















I probably run enough water down the drain just waiting for it to get hot or cold to fill an army of these.
























A standard grain silo. The opening up top lets a small child in to retrieve grain.

















Home.

And faith that depends on God. Prayers. Prayers the size of a dirt floor and muddy pond of drinking water, the size and shape of a child's cries and graves for loved ones. And still they pray. Somewhere in their rich voices and straight backs, devotion emerges. The counterpoint of God answers them with the thunder of His presence.

I am impoverished praying small prayers to a small God, my two dimensional cut-out doll version. My kids forget their manners and ask God for the world. They pray He will heal our friends' baby, the one still in her mommy's tummy. They pray God will make this world well and help the cardboard-sign-guy by the road and help our neighbor's grandchild not have a tumor. They pray Lucy's eye will get better and Great-Grampa will know Jesus. They pray as if God will show up. As if he already has.

When have we prayed like that?! When is the last time we prayed for something so great, so embarrassingly huge that it truly depended on God. In the end our kids judge the size of our God by the size of our prayers. Makes me want to pray forever. I can't imagine God's intimidated. Probably delighted.

4 comments:

Lori said...

The combo of your words and Craig's pictures really brings this trip to life for me as a reader! Can't wait to see more!

Audra said...

Thanks for sharing the photos. Bethany, you should write a devotional for women.

Rose Emily said...

love this... :)

Adina said...

I loved this line: ". . .our kids judge the size of our God by the size of our prayers." I'm going to think about that tonight as we do our ritual bedtime prayers. It's so easy to get in a rut of simplicity in the prayers I do with my kids--when I should be just as real & vulnerable at that time as when I'm doing it on my own.

Hi, BTW. :) I came here to visit, finally! It's interesting that you now live around the corner from where we used to be. It would have been fun to be neighbors.